


Little Ghost

by thegildedbat



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-30
Updated: 2016-12-30
Packaged: 2018-09-13 09:25:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 959
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9117643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thegildedbat/pseuds/thegildedbat
Summary: She denied his offer once, she wouldn't do it again. -- INDEFINITE HIATUS





	

**Author's Note:**

> All my fics are half-way or full-way inspired by song lyrics... here's a verse from the song that inspired me to create and name this story.
> 
> “Every morning I awoke  
> And I see my little ghost  
> Wond'rin' if it's really her that's lying there  
> I lean to touch her and I whisper  
> But not brave enough to kiss her  
> When I held her I was really holding air”

_arya._

Every morning for the past three days she awoke with the smell of rot in her nose. Two moons had passed since she and the Hound had fled from the inn where they slayed Polliver and the Tickler, along with that crater-faced squire. She couldn’t for the life of herself find a reason as to why she stayed by the ugly brute while he sweated out his fever. Arya hated him, after all. Yet for all of her ill feelings, she valued living more than she hated the Hound. When the second day passed and it seemed as if he might just live through the worst of the poison the wound had wrought throughout his body, Arya realized on that day that if she stole his coin and whatever else of use he had, he would come after her with a vengeance once he was back on his feet. No, it was better to wait out the worst of the wound’s corruption with him. Besides, it put a smirk on her face to see him toss and turn through fever dreams and grunt through the pain when he was awake. If he wasn’t yet destined to die, Arya could accept his suffering for the time being.

“Girl, have you tended to the horses today?” he rasped at her from the other side of the fire in the center of their meagre camp.

Arya ignored his question, focusing instead on Needle. She slid the small blade methodically along the whetstone in her grasp. Since finding the sword again, it spent more time in her hand than it did cinched in the makeshift scabbard she had made while wiling the time away in their camp. She was determined to keep it as sharp and as deadly as humanely possible. With the dainty weapon gifted to her by Jon Snow before she had departed for King’s Landing with Sansa and her father, she felt less like a mouse and more like a wolf… even if she was a lone wolf.

“Are you deaf, girl?!” Clegane half-yelled to her when she didn’t respond. 

Instead of answering, Arya jumped to her feet, looked pointedly at him, and chucked the Hound’s whetstone as close as she could to the fire without submerging it into the flames. She stomped off towards Stranger and Craven with his mutterings of ‘wolf bitch’ and ‘stupid girl’ lingering in her ears.  


Arya ran her hand along Craven’s flank. The sorrel horse whinnied and shook her head back and forth at the contact. Arya loosed Craven’s reins from the low hanging tree branch she’d been tied to and then moved to Stranger. He stomped his hoofs into the hard-packed earth and threw his head back, looking at Arya with a side stare that showed the whites of his eyes, but followed her just the same when she loosened his reins and started leading the two horses to the small stream beside their camp.

After the horses had their fill of water from the stream, Arya lingered a few minutes more for them to graze among the high grasses at the stream’s end before heading back to camp. She hobbled them to the same low hanging branch before moving back to the fire.

“I’d say two more days before we can make ways to Saltpans,” the Hound grunted out. He had found the strength to move from the base of the oak he lingered at for days and lay his bedroll by the fire. He winced as he brought himself up to rest on his elbow and glower at Arya across the flames.

Arya only shrugged. She had no desire to go to the Eyrie, truth be told. She knew the Hound had mind to ransom her to her aunt, but she doubted the lady would even believe dirty, boyish thing Clegane brought before her was Ayra Stark. She had never met this women meant to be her aunt, and though she was a child, she couldn’t help but miss how the lady hadn’t brought her sworn men down from the Vale to help in Robb’s cause. The thought made her belly lurch. It reminded her, once again, that her brother and her mother were dead, murdered by the Freys. The massacre the Hound had pulled her from with the blunt end of an axe only reminded her of how many of her family had died. Her father, her mother and her eldest brother, Bran and Rickon… all that was left to her was Sansa and Jon Snow. Sansa was still in King’s Landing, a place she’d sworn to herself she would never return to, and Jon was at the Wall. The Hound had already laughed off her idea of heading North, reminding her that Joffrey’s ex-dog and an orphan boy would never make it past the Twins, and even then, the Iron Born held the North. Even if the Hound decided to carry her to the Wall and take the black, they would never make it there before their throats or bellies were cut open.

“Do you really think you can find us a ship?” Arya blurt out without really meaning to.

The Hound shrugged. “I still have my tourney winnings. Enough to make us to Heart’s Home. The mountain clans stay clear of the sea’s side of the mountains. They know rocks, not salt water.”

“How do you know she’ll even know me?” Arya whispered, already knowing Clegane knew it was her aunt she was speaking of.

The Hound chuckled, but his raspy voice made it sound more like a choke than anything else. “You’ll just have to prove it to her, won’t you, wolf bitch?” 

Arya swallowed the doubts in her throat as she stared into the flames.

**Author's Note:**

> wanna beta for me? i always ask for betas but none ever appear... anyway, i will keep asking. if i keep re-reading my writing i just grow to hate it.


End file.
